The Price of a Ticket

I was in Kansas City over the weekend, taking my son to see his grandfather. A tri-generational visit to Kauffman Stadium for a Royals game seemed like a good idea, and it seemed like an even better idea once I began searching for tickets on the Royals Web site. Used to buying tickets for the New York teams, I started my search in the upper deck, but quickly noticed that there were field-level seats (Section 131, row S) near home plate available for forty-five dollars each. Surely this had to be a mistake! I knew from experience that tickets in the lower reaches of the upper deck in New York’s stadiums could cost as much as fifty dollars. But it was no mistake: Rockies v. Royals, three tickets, a hundred and thirty-five dollars plus taxes and fees.

I mentioned this coup to my baseball-loving colleague, Richard Brody, who wondered what the same seats might cost at Yankee Stadium. That, in turn, made me wonder if the price of those seats in Yankee Stadium would exceed the total cost of my round-trip airfare and Royals tickets. The flight my son and I took from Newark to Kansas City cost two hundred and fifty dollars per seat. Add forty-five dollars for the Royals ticket and you have a total of two hundred and ninety-five dollars.

In Yankee Stadium, the comparable section to Kauffman’s 131 is 117B. Single-game tickets purchased in advance for that section cost three hundred dollars each—five dollars more than the total of my ticket and airfare.

My good feelings about the trip only increased on game day: Zack Greinke, the reigning Cy Young Award winner was scheduled to pitch for the Royals. But alas, Greinke got shelled by the Rockies, giving up eight runs (seven earned) in three-and-a-third innings, including a three-run homer over the center-field wall by former Yankee Jason Giambi. Despite a respectable 3.57 E.R.A., Greinke is 1-5 on the season, and it’s clear that the Royals (18-27) are going nowhere in their division. It’s also clear why field-level tickets are forty-five dollars.

But, the next time you’re planning to go to a Yankee game, why not check the AWAY portion of the schedule and flip over to see what deals are available on Expedia or Priceline. You could save a buck or two. Or even five.